Mylo to 'rock' Dubai

Scottish DJ revises 'fake, seedy' Dubai comment

By
Rob Garratt
31 January 2012

‘I can’t say I got a lot out of Dubai – it’s fake and seedy and totally unedifying, like its cousin Las Vegas, which I also hate.’ These are the words of electronic music master Mylo, in conversation with British broadsheet The Guardian circa 2006.

Mylo, aka Myles MacInnes, slandered our fair city when asked to complete the sentence ‘I’ll never go back to…’, a pledge he’ll be breaking not for the first time when he flies to Dubai next week (to be fair, he quipped ‘never say never’ back in 2006). Now he’s all laughs and giggles about Dubai, due in part to the first time he broke his vow to play a memorable Dubai DJ set in Trilogy circa 2007. ‘I remember this young guy dancing at the edge of the DJ booth all night,’ recalls MacInnes. ‘He was a prince! We stupidly turned down an invitation to his after-party without knowing who he was.’

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Whether or not MacInnes is sincere in his about-face (it has been five years, after all), his opinion may have been swayed by being offered ‘an easy gig’ warming up the crowd before stadium-filling Brit rockers Kasabian take to the stage at The Sevens stadium on February 10. A man most famous for his killer 2004 album Destroy Rock & Roll, which spawned six hit singles (incredible for a dance record), there’s a certain irony in opening for a band perennially labelled as Oasis’s unsubtle heirs to ladrock. ‘I think it’s quite funny that Kasabian invited me to do this,’ he admits. ‘It’s quite an unusual gig for me.’

So, Mr Destroy Rock & Roll, how rock ’n’ roll are Kasabian? ‘I don’t know them personally, but they played a miserable gig up on the Isle of Skye (in the Scottish Highlands), which is my local island,’ says MacInnes. ‘It was a good gig but it was rainy and windy,’ he quickly adds, at risk of offending his stage-mates. ‘I have no idea how rock ’n’ roll they are in person – you can’t be too rock ’n’ roll in Dubai, can you?’

Despite the runaway success of Mylo’s debut, aside from some freebie discs since given away with British music magazines, there’s been no full-length follow-up in the seven years since. His name has been all over remix work, with artists as diverse as Scissor Sisters, Amy Winehouse and The Killers all benefiting from the Mylo touch. The 33-year-old is currently working on a track for an album of Simple Minds remixes. But what’s up with the new record?

‘There’s a couple of reasons – which I’m not really at liberty to discuss –that have kept me from doing a full-length LP,’ says MacInnes carefully, weighing his words with the nous of a first-class honours graduate from the UK’s Oxford University (which he is, incidentally). Push further and his reply suggests it’s some kind of legal wrangle, rather than a lack of creativity or effort, that has kept Mylo off the airwaves. ‘I have a lot of unreleased material, and I’m still in the studio every day – there are just a few problems to iron out.’

So when will we see an album? ‘As soon as possible – some time this year, but I said that last year.’ And what will it sound like? ‘I’ve got so much material it will probably be a really indulgent triple album that no one will buy and it will sink without trace,’ he says, only half-joking.

While his hands may still be tied (the lack of a definite plan would suggest the legal cloud has far from lifted), MacInnes is keeping busy with a new club night he’s launched in London. But the night has been made somewhat harder to promote thanks to a certain band that played Abu Dhabi on New Year’s Eve, who just happened to name their latest album Mylo Xyoto. The punchline, not lost on MacInnes, is that Coldplay’s fifth LP was released at the same time that the DJ was promoting a night at a small London nightclub called XOYO. No joke.

‘It was the biggest disco night I ever did,’ moans Mylo. ‘There were posters everywhere saying ‘Mylo’ and ‘XOYO’ at the same time they were releasing the album.’ Perhaps he’s just bitter that he’s still waiting for new his album to be realised – but we know which one we’d rather hear.